John Marsden - Marsden on Marsden

When I was nineteen I met a girl who didnt speak. She was a patient in a psychiatric hospital in Sydney.

So was I. Feeling depressed and suicidal, I had been admitted to the hospital in an attempt to resolve some of the problems in my life.

I dont know much about the girl, but Ill call her Rachel. She was fourteen and hadnt spoken for eight months. The gossip around the hospital was that her parents had separated, and Rachel was living with her father and stepmother. She didnt like her stepmother, and had gradually become more withdrawn and depressed, until she shut down completely.

In the ward she made no eye contact with anybody. She moved by pressing into a wall and shuffling along sideways. The rest of the time she stayed huddled in a corner. I was horrified and saddened to see someone so isolated, so unhappy.

One morning I was in the dining area, getting my breakfast on a tray before taking it to a table. A man in the queue began talking to me about Rachel: Did you realise shes going home today?

No, I didnt. How come shes going home? Is she talking now?

Yes, he said. Shes been talking for a few weeks.

We decided to have breakfast with her. We took our trays to her table and started a conversation. She was still very shy but she was talking, and she was excited and pleased to be going home. It was wonderful to see the improvement in her condition.

I never saw her again. Eventually the time came for me to leave the hospital too. But I often wondered about Rachel. Was she happy? Was she still talking? What was her real story?

Some years later I found myself teaching at All Saints College, a small private school in Bathurst, New South Wales. All my life Id had the urge to write, and during my time in Bathurst I made yet another attempt to put something on paper. This time it was a film script. John Mazur, a Canadian who taught English at the school, had been an inspiration to me and had profoundly affected my life, showing me how much a teacher can achieve, how creative a teacher can be, and how the best teachers take risks by exploring the curriculum in adventurous ways.

John was particularly effective with students who had emotional problems. I started wondering what might have happened had Rachel come into contact with John Mazur if Rachel had been a student at the school perhaps. So one holiday I started writing a script using that scenario. With a teachers disintegrating marriage providing a subplot, the script told the story of a deeply troubled girl who comes to a small boarding school, where the teacher helps her regain a sense of identity and a voice.

LINDELL (at staff meeting): I think we should hang in there a little longer with her. I cant exactly give you a reason at least not one thats going to make sense. I just think theres something happening there and if we give her a little more time... I mean shes not going to leap up from her desk and start talking, just because Max here touches her with the sacred blackboard duster... Maybe the talkings not the main thing anyway.

PRINCIPAL: What do you mean?

LINDELL: Well, whats so great about talking? I mean, theres plenty of days I dont talk to anyone and you dont send me off to an institution.